Running

Here’s a piece by my bloggish buddy, Squid.  Oh, that all of God’s children were so resilient as this never-say-die little toddler!! If you haven’t met Squid, I highly recommend her to you! 

I watched you cry today.

Your little feet were carrying you as fast as they could, when, 

BAM!  

Forehead, meet wall.

The waterworks came with a loud scream.

Mommy was back on duty, and sister-recreation time was over…

Or so I thought.

Less than a minute later, you’re back to

Running.  

With tears in your eyes 

But a smile on your face, 

We resumed the game as if nothing had ever happened.

But when we took a break, 

The sniffles returned, and you crawled into my lap, looking for security.  

A few moments of R&R…

And we’re back!

To running. 

-Squid

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go….(Yeah, it’s a old song)

I’m writing this in Heathrow International, London, waiting on the last leg of our trip to Norway to see our second precious bundle in the form of a granddaughter.  Naturally, I’m drinking English Breakfast Tea.  My body doesn’t really know what time it is, although my watch says it’s going on 2PM here, which means it’s close to 8AM back home in the Show Me State, so I guess breakfast tea is still appropriate…somewhere.  We had a few complications due to wind in Chicago, (also appropriate, if you know Chicago), as well as human and technological mishaps—such is international travel I am told—but compared to what could go wrong, these things are merely inconveniences.

There’s a whole lotta shakin’ going on!

Here in the Midwest, we live with tornadoes.  It’s just a way of life; you kind of get used to it, but it’s best not to get TOO used to it, if you get my drift.

One thing we don’t get much of is another kind of “drift”, an earthquake.  Evidently, I’ve been in one without knowing it.  My husband said the test tubes in his lab rattled, but I sure wasn’t privy to anything.  Our family out in California, however, understands this geological phenomenon somewhat more up close and personal.  There’s just something about being woken up with your bed bouncing around that

Juggling life

One of my faves from Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

I was graced one morning recently with a solitary leaf waiting for me on my picnic table.  No fanfare when it floated silently from its arboreal perch announcing, in the only way it could, the inevitability of autumn. 

Ahhhh! Autumn!  Probably my favorite of all seasons, and one of the many reasons I love living in the Midwest.  Summer here is the growing season, tending the crops through the challenging heat and sweat and too little or too much rain.  (Too much this year, BTW, just saying, in case you notice a price increase in all things wheat and corn…)

Now, however, we can anticipate beautiful trees, cooler temps, and the final big harvest before the dormant season kicks in.  The nights get longer, its own way of saying it’s time to rest more after a hard season of work.  And it’s time for the trees to shed their leaves, as they too must rest from the labor of growth in preparation for

Remembering #summer …eventually

Spread your wings!!

Green will return!

It’s the thick of summer now.  This morning, the locusts are humming and the humidity is high, and it’s not even 7:30!  I have just returned from the last of three sorties out of state, and as I lay in bed last night, trying to get to a place of much needed slumber, I began feeling an inward fatigue.  Not exhaustion – yet – but a red flag, a warning to be aware of what I was sensing internally.  I’ve never scored high in what some might call self-awareness, so this was an important signal for me. 

All three trips were not only tiring—how many miles in the car total?  But they were also very relationship-building and relationship-affirming with other family members.  As much as I truly love them all, and am so thankful for them all, it was still quite a time of “out-giving”.  Now as I lay in bed, I began to feel overwhelmed by “the List”—all the things clamoring for my attention, and none of them wanting to stand in line and wait their turn. 

Now, as I sit on the porch, I pray,

I cast all these cares upon You, Lord Jesus.  Thank You, Holy Spirit, that You are my Guide, Comforter, Teacher.  Thank You for grace for the moment.  Show me how to fill up my soul’s tank, to be honest with my limitations and merciful with the limitations of others.  Lord, protect me from over-responsibility and taking on what is not mine to do, not just in projects, but in people.  Bless the works of my hands and the words of my mouth, because they are Yours.  Show me how to open myself so that You can fill me up.  Then, and only then, can I honestly pour out to others!

As if in response to my prayer, a yellow swallowtail butterfly lights to rest in the bush only a few feet away from where I am sitting. He spreads his wings, a living stained glass window, and I am reminded that pausing to admire and to attend to such beauty is, in itself, an act of worship to its Creator.  Wait, and listen, and watch, and in these things, worship occurs.

 Another one arrives and joins his twin!  This second one I would have missed if I had not been paying attention.  There is no nectar with this green bush, no feeding or pollenization happening.  Nothing that business-as-usual would classify as “productive”.  There is only the cool shade in an already dry, hot, and promising-to-be-hotter morning.  And an important mystery begins to be revealed to me: all creation needs rest.

Is it possible to make a credible connection between rest and worship?  Or is worship merely something we “do” when we sing on Sunday morning, and rest something we’d secretly rather be doing on Sunday morning?  What if rest and worship can each be classified as a both a discipline and a joy?

The need for rest is not merely a consequence of the original Fall of man.  No!  It was indisputably God’s intention from the beginning of creation that we should take time for rest, not only physically, but in every other way as well. The Fall of man is, in actuality, reflected in our cultural attitudes typified by statements like, “Sleep is highly overrated.” Granted, sleep and rest are two different things, but everyone needs both.  It is no accident that the Bible specifically records the 7^th day of creation! (1)

Rest is a requirement for health in all areas of our existence.  And rest requires patience, as we allow time for the brain itself, the actual physical organ that sits within in our skull, to recuperate from various levels of trauma, which include individual definitions of stress and overload.  We want quick fixes, like emotional M.A.S.H. units providing temporary patches rather than complete healing and recuperation. 

Now here’s the interesting connection: rest, and its companions—waiting and patience—are skills to be nurtured, even practiced.  And these skills are exercised when we take time to worship God by purposefully diverting our attention from our lists to His beauty.  Significant worship occurs in rest and reflection, as we are attentive to what God is providing for this moment.  (2) Worship does not need to be boxed into a few songs during a worship service, but is expressed when we admire what God is doing right in front of us—in the smile of a child, in the gift of my friend’s big sunflower, or in the lighting of a pair of butterflies in the shade.

I guess even butterflies need rest.

• Genesis 2:1-3
• Psalm 84:1; Psalms 23:1-3

(excerpt from God Loves Gardens by Dawn Jones)